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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773765">The Chaotic Mess of Adopting a Magical Child</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmydrakewings/pseuds/timmydrakewings'>timmydrakewings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse, Accidental Child Aquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruce is a good parent, Child Neglect, Family Bonding, Father Who Learns To Be Better, Fix-It, Fix-it fic, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fuck Canon, Gen, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Little bit of angst, Purple Tim Drake, Self-Hatred, Slight Stabbing, Smack DC over the head because bruce is a good dad, They all need a hug, cursing, harry potter has problems, thats a tag for my stuff now</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:13:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,320</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773765</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmydrakewings/pseuds/timmydrakewings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter's life is changed forever when Jason Todd decides he's his kid now.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd, Batfamily Members &amp; Harry Potter, Batfamily Members &amp; Jason Todd, Batfamily Members &amp; Tim Drake, Harry Potter &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd, Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd &amp; Harry Potter, background Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Batfam Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Chaotic Mess of Adopting a Magical Child</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was amazing to work on and thanks soooo much to my artists and betas!!<br/>my amazing artists are<br/><a href="http://blue-artisces.tumblr.com">blue-artisces</a><br/>-<a href="https://blue-artisces.tumblr.com/post/630982362706149376/my-piece-for-the-batfam-big-bang-its-a-piece">art</a><br/><a href="http://houser-of-stories.tumblr.com">houser-of-stories</a><br/>-<a href="https://houser-of-stories.tumblr.com/post/631072952233918464/my-art-pieces-for-timmydrakewings-s-fic-for">art</a><br/>-<a href="https://houser-of-stories.tumblr.com/post/631073050353369088/and-a-little-jingle-to-go-with-timmydrakewingss">music</a><br/><a href="http://wiitts-art.tumblr.com">wiitts</a><br/>-<a href="https://wiitts-art.tumblr.com/post/631105007610216449/my-last-batfam-big-bang-art-piece-this-one-is-for">art</a><br/><a href="http://bisexualoftheblade.tumblr.com">bisexualoftheblade</a></p><p>and my betas are<br/><a href="http://wisdomofchase.tumblr.com">wisdomofchase</a><br/><a href="http://darlinglissa.tumblr.com">darlinglissa</a><br/><a href="http://wiitts-art.tumblr.com">wiitts</a><br/><a href="http://dariadraws.tumblr.com">dariadraws</a><br/>it was awesome to work with all of you!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It was supposed to be an ordinary mission: just Constantine, dragging them to Who Knows Where, Britain, to deal with magical creatures. Just an average Tuesday. They’d just finished setting up a house to scout from when a random kid wandered through the park that Constantine had labeled as a hotspot, right before opening a portal and leaving them behind, and with no other leads to follow and a chance the kid might somehow be linked to the case, Jason volunteered to keep an eye on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't look like anything extraordinary; a bit on the skinny side if anything, with his taped-up glasses and the obviously hand-me-down clothes that didn't fit him quite right. He looked more like someone you’d find in Crime Alley, rather than a kid who lived on a nice street like this. It felt weird following a kid through residential streets on a case ostensibly meant to be focused on tracking down dangerous magical phenomena, but Jason had learned not to discount leads just because they don't look quite like he expects. Eventually, the boy entered one of the endless identical houses, and Jason slipped into the backyard, not ready to give up on his stakeout quite yet. He made himself comfortable as the family started setting up what was clearly a birthday party.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t spotted the boy once since he’d entered the house, and the scrawny, malnourished shape he'd been in didn’t match the other occupants, two of whom were downright spherical. An older, equally round woman entered the house, and the other three occupants, minus the kid, came out to greet and talk to her. As the afternoon drew to dusk, Jason started getting concerned about what could be going on with the kid. It was really odd that no one seemed to be checking on him or even getting him to join them until they sat down at the table. Even then they were purposely leaving him out as the grownups talked and the pudgy boy opened presents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason was liking this less and less. ‘Abusive’ wasn’t a word he used lightly, but he was starting to think that, in this case, it might be the right one; the family acted like the boy wasn’t even there unless they wanted him to do something for them, or react to something they said. There wasn't much he could do about it at the moment, but he started mentally drafting his future call to CPS; it didn’t seem like the boy had any connection to whatever was happening in the park, so he could call in a quick anonymous tip tomorrow morning and move on, get back to the case at hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except it turned out he couldn't do that. He’d been packing up to leave when he heard a commotion inside the house, and watched the ensuing events unfold with mounting rage and horror.The boy, it seemed, had stepped on a little weasel of a dog, and rather than intervene the family was choosing to let the dog chase the boy all the way out of the house and up into the tree in the very backyard Jason was currently occupying. The boy looked utterly terrified, but not of the dog. He kept glancing into the house at the family laughing inside it like he was afraid that they would just do something worse if he came down, and Jason knew that look. He’d seen that look a lot, out on the streets. He’d worn it himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waited a couple more hours, hoping that maybe, eventually, someone would come out to at least call off the dog, but no-one did a thing, until the lady made to leave and the dog, with one final growl at the cowering boy, went with her. And then the boy was still left in the tree. Jason hadn’t seen him eat anything while he was inside, and it was getting pretty late, especially for someone who looked like he must be in elementary school.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason opened his comm back up to Roy and Kori and heard the middle of a familiar argument over who would cook dinner. Kori always wanted to cook, but after many failed attempts in the kitchen, the two humans had started a united front, to at least </span>
  <em>
    <span>reduce </span>
  </em>
  <span>the frequency with which the food they ate caused their skin to start flaking off – which seemed like an oddly specific request, but so far Kori had been responsible four such incidents, and drastic measures were being taken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you guys seen anything suspicious?” he asked, trying to take his mind off the kid in the tree. It really wasn’t his place to do anything about it, no matter how much he really, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> wanted to storm into that house and give the parents a piece of his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only Kori’s latest ‘traditional Tamaranian recipe’. Are you coming back any time soon? I think this might end up being a bust.” Jason heard something crash near Roy. “Anything happening on your end?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just one case of child abuse.” He glanced back up at the tree, torn. “I don’t know if I feel safe leaving him here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So he does have a soft side!” Roy laughed on the other end of the line. “Seriously, though, do we need to take the kid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason glanced at his watch. It was getting close to 10pm, and the kid was still up in the goddamn tree. “I’m starting to think we should.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just tell us the plan and we’ll be there,” Kori cut in, and there was another crash in the background. “Roy won’t let me cook again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason groaned. “We made a deal, remember? No cooking until you can prove that whatever you make is safe for us. Now hush, both of you, I’m gonna go talk to him. Red hood logging off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He muted his comm and moved out of the shadows, taking off his helmet as he went. He  stepped extra loud, as he approached, not at all eager to startle the boy into losing his grip, but  the kid didn’t even notice he was there, too busy staring at the house like someone was going to lunge out of it and attack him. It was probably too late in the day to call CPS, and there was no promise they would be able to do anything about it – especially since he couldn’t exactly say that he'd been hiding in the backyard for hours, stalking him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it was down to him. Damn Bruce for even putting the idea in his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, kid!” He called up, standing at the base of the tree. “Any reason you’re hanging out up there? It’s gotta be past your bedtime.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid looked down at him and shook his head a bit, but otherwise didn’t move. Jason swung up close to where the kid was sitting and stared up at the sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seriously, is there something going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid hugged his knees to his chest. “They’re going to be mad at me and lock me in again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason’s eyes got a little wider at that. “Is that something that happens often?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid curled closer into his ball. “No,” he said softly, but Jason knew he was lying. He’d told the same kind of lies before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have they ever hit you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Another lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason gave in. There was no way he would let that kid go back into that house, not if they were locking him up and making him feel unsafe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s your name, kid?” He asked, scooting a little closer to the boy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harry,” the kid responded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Harry, I’m Jason.” He took off his jacket and draped it around the kid's, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry's</span>
  </em>
  <span>, shoulders. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason waited until the boy seemed to have drifted into some semi-conscious state and unmuted his comm. He spoke softly to not wake the boy up. “So. I may need an extraction.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Roy cackled. “Taking after your dad, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason started to snap something back, but a look at the boy who had fallen over onto his shoulder stopped him. “Just come get us. I don’t wanna have to drag him through a mile of British suburbia.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Coming!” Kori called, and true to her word touched down just a couple of minutes later, a living flashlight in the middle of the yard. Jason pulled the kid gently into his arms and glanced back up at the house. No-one had even noticed Kori land. He didn’t feel that bad about taking the kid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kori took them back to their safehouse and Jason managed to put the boy down to sleep in the bedroom before Kori and Roy pounced on him and dragged him over to the ratty couch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what are we doing with him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Jason said honestly, falling back against Kori with his arm across his eyes. “I just couldn’t leave him there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That bad?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry woke up in a bed he didn’t recognize, with no idea where he was. He looked around and heard someone singing on the other side of the door in a language he also didn’t recognize.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He got up and peeked around the door and saw a tall woman with oddly orange skin bouncing around the living room in a hoodie and sweats, singing the song he had heard from the bedroom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stopped when she saw him and wrapped him up in a hug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you sleep well, little one?” She asked, looking him over. “Do you want breakfast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked around, trying to find Jason. “Where is Jason?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’ll be back soon.” She said. “He had to go and grab something. Come on, I’m sure we can get you something for breakfast before he gets back.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She brought him over to the kitchen and put him on one of the barstools at the counter. She started rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out bowls and cereal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry slid back in his chair when she dropped the bowl in front of him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you doing ok?” She asked. “I know we took you from your home, but you understand you weren’t safe there, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the counter as he ate his cereal. “I don’t like being there at all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason and Roy got back to see Kori hovering over Harry in the kitchen, trying to coax him into doing something besides staring at the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason walked over, picking him up and dragging him to the couch. Roy followed with a deck of cards they’d gotten while they were out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you ever played War?” Roy asked, shuffling the deck. Harry shook his head and leaned into Jason, who put his arm around him. “You just flip a card out of your pile and if it’s the higher card of the ones we put down you take them. Whoever ends up with all the cards wins.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dealt out the cards, and Jason won the first game. And the second. And then Roy started stacking the deck so that literally anyone else would win. And Jason won again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How???” Roy complained, falling back against the wall. “How could you win at </span>
  <em>
    <span>War</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not that hard. Timmy cheats all the time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roy smacked him on the head. “And why must we cheat at cards? Literally what does this accomplish?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason shrugged. “It’s fun.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night when Jason went to put him to bed Harry grabbed his arm, pulling him down next to him. Jason stayed with him until Harry fell asleep, and then gently removed Harry’s hand and wrapped it around a pillow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you watch him tonight Roy?” Jason asked. “I need to get out tonight.”`</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason and Kori headed out for the night. Roy settled in on the couch with one of Jason's books. A little while after they left he heard something rustling in the bedroom. When he opened the door Harry was shaking from nightmares on the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gently woke up Harry, and climbed under the blankets with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” Roy asked. “Do you need anything?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry shook his head and turned away from him. “I’m fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roy looked up at the ceiling. “Do you want something to drink? Always helps me when I have nightmares.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Harry pulled the blankets up past his head, clearly trying to feign sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I stay here?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry nodded. Roy reached out his arm towards Harry’s blanket ball and patted him on the head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They got back to Gotham and Roy and Kori helped him settle the kid into one of his better safehouses, though Kori did suggest that maybe he should consider moving. A rundown apartment in one of the worse parts of Crime Alley definitely wasn’t high on the list of the better places he could settle Harry, even if he was working to make it safer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry's terrified face that night, when one of the neighborhood gangs got into a shootout up the block, only solidified his resolve. He couldn't keep him here; they'd have to move. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided to call Tim; their relationship had been getting better since Bruce had come back, and he had nicer safehouses that Jason could crash at until he found another place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mind made up, Jason decided to leave the call until tomorrow morning. He packed up what he needed from the safehouse and quietly walked into the living room to make sure Harry had actually fallen asleep this time, even if he was going to have nightmares. He ran a hand over Harry’s forehead, watching his chest move up and down for a few minutes, and moved over to the balcony to look down at the street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were a couple of people heading home late, a working girl standing on a corner, and a couple of men standing in front of an alley. No one seemed to be actively causing any trouble, so Jason decided to go to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---------------------------------------- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He woke up early the next morning, and called Tim while fixing breakfast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Timbers, you up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A groan from the other end of the line, and the sound of a body falling on the ground, but not the one holding the phone. “I am now. What do you need? You said you were off in England with Constantine, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, got back last night.” He said, rifling through his fridge for a carton of eggs and some milk. “Speaking of which, I have a tiny favor to ask. I kind of maybe brought something back with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ugh. What is it this time? Please say you aren’t calling me over some kind of alien weaponry again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not, I promise!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Then what is it?” Jason could hear Tim starting up his coffee maker in an attempt to get to whatever he considered human.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>may</span>
  </em>
  <span> have adopted a kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Over the line, Jason heard the distinct sound of Tim choking on air. “You have to be joking!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.” Jason cracked the eggs and milk into the pan. “Picked him up in England.” Jason tried to keep his voice steady.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what do you need from me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My place is a mess, I was wondering if we could crash at one of your safehouses.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow, give the man a prize, he realizes that maybe he shouldn’t be living out of crappy apartments in Crime Alley!” Tim laughed. “You guys could stay with me if you wanted. I’m not home all that often between our night lives and WE, so you’d pretty much have the place to yourselves.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t some kind of trick, right Replacement? I know I haven’t exactly put myself on the best footing with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t wanna leave a kid at one of </span>
  <em>
    <span>your</span>
  </em>
  <span> safehouses, and it’s better for him to stay here than at an empty one of mine. Plus, you haven’t tried to kill me lately, so we should be fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure?” Jason prodded, finishing with the stove and transferring the food onto two plates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just come over here before I change my mind.” Tim hung up before Jason could argue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometime during the call Harry had come out of his room and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. He hovered around the doorway, not seeming to want to come in. Jason purposely kept his back turned while he set the table, letting Harry come into the room at his own speed. Jason sat down at the table and started eating his eggs, waving Harry over once he’d come into the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry looked distrustfully at his food, and then at Jason. Jason had seen that kind of look on kids from Crime Alley, kids that had their food taken away from them as punishment. It made him want to go back to England and have a word with Harry’s parents. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason pushed Harry’s food a little closer to him. “I’m not going to take it away. C’mon kid, eat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason finished his food and walked to the sink to wash his dishes, and by the time he turned back around Harry had finished his as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want more?” Harry shook his head. “We’re gonna go stay with my brother. Is that okay with you? I don’t figure you want to stay in this ratty old apartment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry nodded. “Is he nice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason pretended to think about it for a moment, but in the end he couldn’t fight the mischievous smile that stole onto his face. “Yeah,” he promised. “He’s the best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And just like that, Jason and Harry moved in with Tim, into a couple of spare rooms he had in his apartment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry spent most of his time in his room, avoiding both Jason and Tim. This went on for a couple weeks before Jason decided he had to intervene. It wasn’t good for a kid to hole himself up in his room for days on end, no matter what Tim said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knocked on Harry’s door in the morning, cracking it open when Harry said he could. The kid was sitting in the bay window, curled into a little ball and watching the birds outside the glass. Jason laid down on the bed, tilting his head back to look at Harry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Do you wanna go out today? Go to the zoo or something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry kept staring out at the birds, tracing his finger on the window in a little swishing pattern following the flight of the birds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to get out at some point kiddo. It must be getting boring.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry looked over to Jason and blinked a couple times before looking back out the window. This was starting to remind Jason of how Tim acted after a long case. Which meant one thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason grabbed Harry’s jacket and shoes and put them next to Harry. “Come on, get up. We’re going to the zoo, it’ll be fun.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry stared at him again but put his jacket and shoes on and let himself get dragged out of the apartment. Harry seemed to become more alert as they went towards the zoo, and Jason called that a win.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They spent the day at the zoo, and Harry spoke up to ask if they could visit the bird exhibits, which Jason was all too happy to do since it meant that Harry was speaking at all. After the birds they moved on to the reptiles exhibit, which had acquired a new snake that Jason hadn’t seen yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry leaned forwards to the glass of one of the snake exhibits and stared down at it. He seemed to whisper something under his tongue that Jason didn’t quite catch. The snake perked its head up like it had understood whatever Harry had said. Like it could even </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear</span>
  </em>
  <span> him, through the glass between them. It pointed it’s head towards the exit and then Jason got distracted by a kid crying further into the exhibit hall. When he turned back somehow the glass he and Harry had been standing in front of had disappeared and the snake just </span>
  <em>
    <span>left</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It ignored everything around it and just slithered its way to the exit, completely unbothered by the pandemonium erupting in its wake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason leaped forwards and, in one practiced motion – because when Batman trained his Robins to be ready for anything, he really meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> – caught it in a secure grip behind the head, handing it over to a shaking zoo attendant who looked like he was about to faint. Harry, on the other hand, didn't look the least bit fazed when he went back to check that he was ok, despite the fact that a giant snake had just crawled out of an exhibit right in front of him. He made a note to tell Tim about it later, and walked them out into the garden outside the building. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you ok?” Jason asked, and Harry just shrugged. Jason decided to keep an eye on Harry for the rest of the day, something seemed off about what had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason came home later in the afternoon with a much happier Harry, hanging off his hand talking about all the animals they’d seen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim smiled at them when they came in, and then went back to whatever he was doing on his laptop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry went and sat on the couch after fetching a book, and Jason decided to do the same, and they stayed that way until Harry went to bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later that night, once Harry was safely asleep, Jason caught Tim downstairs, working on his computer and getting ready to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw something weird when I took Harry to the zoo,” he said by way of greeting, sidling up beside him and leaning a hip against his chair. “The glass wall of one of the snake enclosures just vanished, straight into thin air. I caught it before it escaped the building, but I can’t think of any of the Rogues who would pull that kind of stunt.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim hummed thoughtfully, fingers flying as he obligingly brought up the zoo’s security feeds. “Are you asking me if I think Harry did it? That’s a little crazy, even for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just worried about him. We found him near the hotspot Constantine wanted us to watch, and there’s always the chance some kind of side effect from that could be causing this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fair.” Tim pulled up the relevant camera. It had an angle that caught Harry’s face, and whatever he’d been whispering at the snake. Except that it looked more like he was hissing at it. As they watched, the glass disappeared on the screen, and Jason caught the snake. “Ok, that is weird,” Tim admitted. “And that’s saying something for us. I don’t see any way that glass could have vanished like that under normal circumstances.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason groaned. “Are you suggesting magic? That always makes everything more annoying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim shrugged. “That’s what it looks like. Could you tell what he was whispering? Your lip-reading is better than mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Looks like he was hissing at the snake? I don’t know,” Jason said. “Maybe he was just acting like a kid? Y’know, like he should be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They headed out to patrol, and by the time they got back they’d both forgotten about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next couple weeks were mostly uneventful. They hadn’t told anyone in The Family that Jason had stolen Harry, or that he had moved in with Tim, and no major cases had come up either. The only exceptions were Alfred and Babs, since Jason and Tim had both agreed that they were bound to find out anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim was busy with WE and spent his weekends in San Francisco, and Jason tried to keep Harry busy while doing his best to avoid the Bat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim and Jason had agreed that l Harry didn't need to know anything about their nightlife – the kid had enough on his plate – and that worked for a while, but kids were nosy little things, and somehow they both forgot about that fact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim was video chatting his team in the middle of the night with the lights off in the kitchen when Harry shuffled into the kitchen, half-asleep but wanting water to soothe a sore throat. Tim didn’t notice him, and Harry was too tired to look around. The Titans were quietly cackling as Tim looked like he was going to fall asleep and faceplant on the table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sip by sip, the water disappeared, and by the time he’d reached the bottom of his glass, Harry was awake enough to wonder about the laughter. Tim’s screen showed a bunch of people Tim’s age, probably the friends he spent his weekends with. One of them was literally vibrating with laughter, and another one looked like he floated a little higher up every time he wheezed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry rubbed his eyes and looked again; he must have seen wrong because he was half asleep. But no, they were still there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dude are you actually asleep?” One of them asked Tim, who looked like he was getting closer by the second to face planting into the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh is that the kid?” The girl asked. “He’s so cute!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim suddenly sat up and looked behind him, seeing Harry near the sink. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>God damn it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” And just passed out. His friends only laughed louder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of them waved at Harry to come over to the laptop. “Hi kid!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um hi?” He said, half-hiding behind the sleeping figure of Tim. “Are you Tim’s friends? Why is that boy vibrating?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl grabbed the boy’s arm and steadied him, even though he was actually laughing harder. “Tim hasn’t told you about us? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really</span>
  </em>
  <span>? We’ve gotta fix this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Umm?” Harry was just getting more confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See ya kid!” She said, and logged off the call.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry rubbed his eyes and stared at the black screen for a moment, but in the end he simply closed it down and went back to bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the morning Harry woke up to what sounded like people happily talking to each other. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t resist the pull of curiosity. He walked into the living room to see the people from last night’s call pummeling Tim with pillows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh hi!” The girl said, whacking Tim one last time and then walking over to Harry. “I’m Cassie and I’m one of that idiot’s best friends. Those two dolts are Bart and Kon. We’re getting him back for not telling you about us.” Harry could see a sliver of some kind of metal bracelet on one of her arms before her sleeve fell back down to cover it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She picked him up and hugged him, swinging him around in a circle. "You're just so cute!" </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Harry looked around for Jason but didn't see him anywhere. His protector seems to have abandoned him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Where's Jason?" he asked. Jason was always there when something was new. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He's just out getting groceries," Tim called, a little muffled from where he was still being attacked on the couch. "He should be back any minute now."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>RIght on cue, the lock rattled, and Jason shouldered his way through the door with a few bags in his arms. He took one look at Tim and started laughing; Tim’s friends’ shocked faces only made him laugh louder. He waved his hand. “No please, go on, don’t stop on my account. Whatever this is, I’m sure he deserves it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim’s friends just stare more, and Cassie slid Harry behind her a bit. Harry shoved around her and over to Jason, wrapping him in a tight hug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>? What else aren’t you telling us Tim?” Bart asked, skidding to a stop with a pillow in his hand, looking confused and concerned in equal measure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason and Harry live with me, OK?” Tim said, and gave them a look to shut up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry followed Jason into the kitchen hanging off his hand, as Tim and his friends broke into furious whispers behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A minute later they swarmed into the kitchen, helping with the groceries and then declaring that they needed to show Harry the wonder that was video games.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was that about?” Jason asked, as the young heroes hustled Harry over to the living room and started a loud debate over which games to show him first. “They seemed freaked out when I came in, did you not tell them I was staying with you? They looked like they thought I was gonna try and kill you again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told them.” Tim said. “They’re just really protective of me, after that whole Titans Tower thing; they feel bad, I think, that they couldn't do anything when it happened, and of course like everyone else they see me as “just” human. They’ll get over it, once they get to know you. At least you aren’t insane anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got them to agree not to blow our secret IDs, though they said they’re gonna use their powers cuz – and I quote – ‘it’s funny’.” Tim made air quotes and groaned. “This isn’t gonna end well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile, Bart had managed to teach Harry the basics of Smash Bros, and was appalled that Tim had neglected such a key part of his education. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Tim went back into the living room, he found Harry sitting on Kon’s lap as they played Rainbow Road, while Kon kept using TTK to push on Bart’s joysticks and make him spin off the road, and Cassie was cheering loudly. It was both adorable and a complete disaster, and Tim snapped a candid photo, vowing to frame it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slid in and knocked his shoulder against Kon’s. “Can I play next?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce finds out. Because of course he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They manage to talk him down from storming Tim’s apartment in full bat-gear, but at the cost of a promise to bring Harry around for dinner at the Manor. While Alfred maintained his neutrality on the matter of a rescue, he had been firmly of the opinion that a visit would do Harry good, and that it would be nice to have someone in the house who could appreciate the finer points of a proper English meal .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry, tragically, accepts without complaint once they explain where they’re going, robbing them of their last legitimate escape hatch out of this situation, so they head over to the Manor and hope for the best. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s amazed by everything; each painting and sculpture and chandelier and fancy wall dazzles him more than the last, and when he learns about Alfred, he damn near passes out in awe. Jason would laugh, but he remembers that his own reaction to suddenly having a butler had been uncomfortably similar. But then Harry says it looks like some kind of palace, and this time Jason can’t help it, he laughs so hard he needs to sit down, because yeah, those had been his exact words too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sit down to dinner with almost everyone present, barring Dick who’s still working a case in Bludhaven, and it’s nice. Nicer than Jason expected, anyways, though he knows better than to think it will last. Harry’s eyes light up when Alfred brings out the food and Jason can’t even be jealous, because he’s been trying to make comfort foods for Harry, but no one cooks like Alfred. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They eat in silence for a while, until Bruce starts asking Tim about what he’s been working on lately, and Damian decides to pick a fight with Jason about how he’s trying to replace them all by adopting a kid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look twerp, you know who raised me; it isn’t my fault I picked up your dad’s adopting habit.” Jason growls, annoyed and feeling off-balance in some way he can’t quite name. “Take it up with him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To be fair, you never told me about him.” Bruce points out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And just when would I have done that?” Jason inquires, poisonous and honey-sweet and vicious, and doesn't notice when Harry starts sinking in his seat towards the floor. “It’s not like you ever let me just talk to you anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would if you’d stop ignoring everything I try to tell you!” Bruce snaps back, abandoning all previously-stated pretense of being fair, and fine. Jason had hoped having the kid around would be enough of a buffer, but looks like they're having this fight after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Harry slips out of his chair and disappears into the hallway, he probably means it to be subtle, and in a regular household maybe it would have been, but every eye at that table is Batman-trained. Tim starts after him in an instant, concern and sympathy on his face, but Bruce pins him in place with a glare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t forgotten about you either, young man. Jason’s not the only one keeping secrets; they moved into </span>
  <em>
    <span>your</span>
  </em>
  <span> apartment. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how little you tell me. You’ve completely cut yourself off from our systems, I barely know anything about what you’re doing at all.” Bruce says with a frown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well maybe you’d know more if you tried reaching out once in a while,” Tim shoots back, face shuttering into a look of cold, distant politeness, all hints of emotion wiped from his face. .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce pushes back from the table, annoyance finally breaking through his usual emotionless facade, but whatever he’d been about to say next – if he’d had anything to say at all, if he hadn't been about to just pull another classic Batman disappearing act right there in his own damn dining room – they’ll never get to know, because the moment he stands up they hear an ominous groan, and the nearest china cabinet behind him gives a small shiver and promptly tips over. Bruce’s reflexes save him from the worst of it – though a couple teacups still manage to clock him quite spectacularly on the head – but unfortunately the same cannot be said for the cabinet’s contents. They watch in mute horror as dozens of decorative plates, teacups, and saucers – as well as creamers, sugar bowls, one unlucky teapot – come hurtling out past the now open doors to crash, in a tinkling, splintered, mess against the hardwood floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the aftermath, the room is silent. Tim looks carefully around to see what could have caused it – there was no way it could have fallen on its own and he didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’d seen Jason set anything up on the way in – to see Harry peeking in from the hallway, looking absolutely terrified. They lock eyes for just a moment, and then the boy turns and disappears down the hallway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim curses and runs to follow him, shrugging off Jason’s hand. He leaves the others to deal with the latest China Cabinet Massacre – the fifth, since his addition to the family, but from the way Dick tells it there had been many more before his time – and focuses all his energy on speed; he needs to see the kid. He follows the sounds of Harry’s footsteps as he sprints towards the study, but before he can reach him he hears the distinctive </span>
  <em>
    <span>click</span>
  </em>
  <span> of the clock swinging open, and by the time he makes to the room the passage to the cave is open, and Harry is gone. Tim wants to smack himself. Addendum, he wants to smack </span>
  <em>
    <span>Damian</span>
  </em>
  <span>, who must have left it unlocked behind himself, right where Harry could activate the proximity sensors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim finds him on one of the ledges he used to hide on himself, a little ways into the Cave. Tim doesn't fit as well as he used to, so maybe he’s actually, finally grown a bit, but he makes it work.“Hey kiddo, you okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry is curled as far into the wall as he can be, plastered to it like he thinks he can sink right through it if he just squeezes hard enough, but at the sound of Tim’s voice he still tries to squirm deeper. . Tim hasn’t seen him like this since he first moved into his apartment with Jason, and he hates that he played any part in regressing him so far. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to hate me,” Harry mumbles into the wall, shrugging further into his jacket. It’s one of Jason’s and far too large for his skinny frame, but that seems to be a large part of the appeal; Jason’s been going out for weeks without his jacket, because Harry keeps stealing every new one he sees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why would you think that?” Tim asks, slowly sidling closer. He doesn't want to spook him, but he can barely hear a word Harry’s saying, and he doesn't want to push him by asking him to speak up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My hair grows too fast and is always messy. Aunt Petunia shaved off almost all of it once, left just enough to hide my scar but it all grew back by morning and she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>mad. Whenever they mention my parents they always tell me how stupid they were, and how they died because of it. Even, every time I said something about a dream or idea I had they told me that it was dangerous. Weird things happen around me, so they might be right. I must just be a freak.” Harry turned his face away from the wall and buried it in his knees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim thinks back to the first time he’d seen Harry. He’d had a pair of taped up glasses, and his clothes didn’t seem to be his own, had fit </span>
  <em>
    <span>weird</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he didn’t have anything with him even though he had been taken away from his house, and carted across an entire ocean. The pieces are starting to click into place, and he’s suddenly very grateful Jason had stolen the kid. Whatever else was going on, this boy had been seriously abused; likely a mix of verbal abuse and neglect. Not even letting him have anything to keep as his own even, Tim would bet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim’s childhood had, in many ways, been the mirror opposite of Harry’s – silence in place of screaming, a fully-stocked, impersonal house in place of deliberate control – but the damage, he figures, probably shook out just the same. They might wear it differently, but it all comes from the same place. So he sits quietly next to Harry and doesn't press him for any more painful details, just texts Jason their location, as well as his suspicions regarding what had gone down, and waits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason arrives subdued a little while later and gestures that they can talk about Bruce after, and Tim doesn't press him, either Just lets him scoop Harry up and back to the car they’d arrived in, and drives them all home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> -----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what happened?” Jason asks, after triple-checking that Harry’s tucked safely into bed and doesn't, in the moment, seem too upset..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think he saw Bruce fighting with us and panicked. Thought he was gonna hit us, maybe, and knocked the cabinet over to protect us.” Tim doesn't look at him, eyes scanning through the behavior reports he’d pulled from where Harry had gone to school. “I think he’s been seriously abused.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, that about matches what I saw,” Jason confirms, “but how’d he shove it over? That thing’s huge.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think he did it physically. You said you were in England for a magical thing, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Constantine said that there was some kind of ghoul floating around the streets. We found it and called him. I assume he got it or he would have called us back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m thinking it might have been hunting Harry, because it seems to have left when you did. Constantine didn’t even leave one of his little post-it notes for the League.” Tim frowns, scrolls a little deeper into the reports. “I think Harry might have some kind of magic. That’s the only way he could have moved that cabinet, and there’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>years </span>
  </em>
  <span>of weird incidents involving him that are either meta or magic based. Like right here,” Tim taps the screen, like Jason’s supposed to have the first clue how to tell a Weird Incident from a regular one in what has to be size 8 font at the largest, “ when he somehow wound up on the roof of the school when bullies were chasing him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or when he made a pane of glass disappear after hissing at a snake,” Jason says slowly, realizing where Tim’s going with this. “I thought he was just kidding around, but he really did look like he was having some kind of conversation with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly,” Tim says, looking satisfied. “You’ll call Constantine in the morning?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Constantine says he’ll come by before the end of the week, and it was like a switch had been flipped when Harry knocked over the bookcase. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things begin to move around the apartment, hovering in the air or whipping around or sometimes just rattling, whenever Harry’s moods get too intense. On one particularly memorable occasion, he got so excited that he managed to turn Tim purple. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he’d gone out that evening, Spoiler laughed so hard she almost fell off a roof, and Gotham’s thugs might never look at him the same way again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Constantine comes and talks to Harry about what’s been going on, and then he turns around and smacks Jason on the arm, only </span>
  <em>
    <span>barely</span>
  </em>
  <span> waiting long enough to make sure Harry’s out of the room when he does it. “Did it ever occur to you,” he says, in the same slow, fake-cheerful voice he’d been using to talk to Harry but with exactly </span>
  <em>
    <span>none</span>
  </em>
  <span> of the accompanying patience or calm, “That taking a </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid</span>
  </em>
  <span>. From an area with an </span>
  <em>
    <span>active magical disturbance.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Just </span>
  <em>
    <span>might </span>
  </em>
  <span>be the sort of thing</span>
  <em>
    <span> I’d need to know about?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”“Uh,” says Jason eloquently, rubbing his arm and heroically ignoring the truly extraordinary glare Constantine has leveled in his direction. “I mean. I think the answer to that one’s pretty obvious.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Constantine glares harder, and Jason makes a mental note to check in with Zatanna once this whole mess is dealt with because wow, he’s definitely being cursed right now. “Look, I told you now, didn't I? Stop whining and tell me what’s up with the kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Stop whining,’” Constantine repeats, luckily sounding more amused than offended by the suggestion. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Whining.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Unbelievable. See if I ever help your zombie arse again, you cheeky little ingrate. Next time you pull a stunt like this, you bloody well </span>
  <em>
    <span>tell me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>you hear? You’re lucky you just picked up a spellcaster, and not some latin-chanting, kid-possessing freakshow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason pauses. He stops avoiding Constantine’s eyes, pivoting to face him directly. “I’m sorry,” he says, slow and precise, because one of them </span>
  <em>
    <span>must </span>
  </em>
  <span>be misunderstanding the other, and it better not be Constantine. “Are you telling me that Harry, that kid I plucked out of a tree in suburban London like someone’s forgotten apple harvest, is a goddamn </span>
  <em>
    <span>wizard?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cannot,” Constantine sighs, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>possibly</span>
  </em>
  <span>, be this dense. Yes, he’s a wizard. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>called </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, how are you surprised right now? He’s a decently strong one, from the looks of it, but all this,” he waves vaguely around in the general direction of Harry’s exit, “is pretty normal stuff for kids his age. His kind go to wizarding schools, so you’ll probably be getting a letter about it soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any tips for stopping any more unfortunate accidents?” Tim asks, appearing in the doorway exactly like someone who’d spent his childhood idolising a walking, cape-wearing disappearing act. The effect was only a little ruined by the stubbornly resilient purple that still covered every inch of his skin.“I can’t go into the office looking like this, no matter what Stephanie says.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could fix the purple if you really want me to.” Constantine offers, with the kind of straight face that </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost </span>
  </em>
  <span>makes up for the fact that, when he’d first seen Tim, he’d laughed so hard he’d cried . “As for the future, you’ll just need to teach the kid to control his outbursts. Might take a while, but that’s just parenting, innit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim’s sigh is world-weary, but he must really want the purple gone because he submits to Constantine’s magic without voicing a single one of the complaints Jason can see piling up behind his teeth. As Constantine sets about righting Tim’s complexion, Harry hangs off his every word, watching silently as the older man explains his process, and how to focus his magic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Harry tells them, very solemnly once Constantine leaves and they're tucking him into bed, how cool he had been, and asks whether he’ll be coming back, Jason’s almost charmed despite himself. He still can’t help the feeling, as they leave his room, that introducing the two of them had been a huge mistake. Constantine is going to be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrible</span>
  </em>
  <span> influence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over the next couple weeks Jason and Tim work on helping Harry control his magic, as best they can. There are still </span>
  <em>
    <span>incidents,</span>
  </em>
  <span> because honestly even without magic, Harry’s still a kid, but for the most part nothing </span>
  <em>
    <span>too </span>
  </em>
  <span>valuable gets destroyed, and nothing noticeable happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All and all, it’s a mostly uneventful couple of weeks, outside of the morning that Harry snuck up on Tim as he was going through katas and made him explain in minute detail where a bo staff came from.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason tells him anecdotes of Gotham’s vigilanties as bedtime stories every night before he goes on patrol, and between the stories and the news Harry decided that the vigilanties must be some kind of magical creature. He and Tim both broke down laughing when he said that, neither of them wanting to tell him why. Both of them are waiting for the perfect opportunity to wave it in Bruce’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night after dealing with a particularly violent drug deal, Tim comes home nursing a broken rib and Jason with a bullet to his arm. Tim is stitching Jason’s wound when Harry wanders into the kitchen and sees them both in full gear. They hadn’t wanted to stay underground in the Nest for this, which looking back might have been a slight miscalculation on their parts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t what you think it is,” Tim tries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This explains the gun I found under the sink,” Harry mumbles groggily, before grabbing his water and going back to bed. Tim and Jason just stare after him for a couple moments, but injured and sleepy as they are, they leave him be. They have their own beds to get to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry grudgingly abandons his theory that they’re magical creatures after that night though. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that the Family knows that they have a kid, they start randomly showing up at their apartment. They try to explain how they're related, since Harry asks, but he loses track before they even get to Tim, so they just say they’re brothers – or sisters, in Steph and Cass’s case – and leave it at that. .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Terry, please stop telling him about how Bruce is an old fart in the future.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t believe her there isn’t a cult worshipping waffles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And this little demon is why we use protection.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cass, please stop startling him for fun, you’re making him think you’re a monster instead of a person.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is the normal one. We love him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After one stabbing incident involving Damian, they replaced the locks on the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damian, being Damian, still manages to find a way in, and tries to convince Harry that he should be going out with the rest of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry starts trying to sneak out at night and follow them; the sneaking out part usually works better than the following. Every entry-point into Tim’s apartment is locked and alarmed but Harry, slippery little magic-child that he is, never seems to have any trouble opening any door or window that he wants, though it doesn't do him much good in the end. They can usually find him within two blocks of the apartment by simply waiting 10 minutes on a neighboring roof before going on patrol.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, after three escape attempts in a row, they drag him home and sit him down, talk to him about how dangerous it is to be running out like that, how easy it is to get hurt or worse, running around Gotham unsupervised, and that’s during the </span>
  <em>
    <span>day</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Jason gives Tim a Look when he says that, because the point is sound but it doesn't make his brother any less of a hypocrite; he knows damn well he’d spent his formative years pulling the exact same shit he’s cautioning Harry away from now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Tim says breezily, “but </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> never got caught.” He grins at Jason, smug and wide and utterly unrepentant, and laughs at the sour look on Jason’s face. “You never noticed me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry tries the age-old Robin argument of reminding them how young they’d been when they started, but doesn't have a response when they remind </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> that they’d all been trained, in their own ways before hitting the streets. Dick had been a world class acrobat, and had started his Robin career mainly as a distraction, not a front-line fighter. Jason had his street skills, and knew the layouts of the streets and where things went down better than Batman himself. Tim had managed to evade Batman for years and was, in his own words, “the smartest of them all,” and Damian was literally trained as an assassin from birth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry doesn't manage to convince them to let him out at night, but they do relent enough to promise him lessons in self defense, </span>
  <em>
    <span>just in case anything ever happens</span>
  </em>
  <span>, though mostly they do it to keep him </span>
  <em>
    <span>off </span>
  </em>
  <span>the streets; the lessons come with the condition that, if he wants to learn, he needs to master at least one form of it before they let him out. A few weeks later, when Damian shows up demanding a sparring partner, they set him up with Harry, keeping a very careful eye on the match. Damian is, as expected, easily victorious, but rather than lord his superiority over him, he walks Harry through what he had done wrong, and what he could have done better. It’s possibly the gentlest he’s ever treated Harry, and for that Jason buys him a new set of throwing knives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Harry goes and uses that fight – along with the way Tim and Jason complain about him – to figure out that Damian is Robin, and Jason doesn't know which is funnier: the fact that Tim’s managed to spread his “immune to secret identities” quirk to the kid just by existing in his general vicinity, or the look on Damian’s face, when he discovers what happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night Bruce manages to catch them on patrol, and corners them before they can make a clean getaway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry about how I reacted,” he says by way of greeting. “Duke… invited me to reconsider what happened that night, and I could have expressed myself better. It isn't my intention to take Harry away from you: I understand why it might have sounded that way, but that wasn’t what I meant. I just wanted to make sure that he was safe from himself, and that you were both safe from him. That’s all that really matters to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne, Jason thinks, apologizes like a man who’s never genuinely felt a shred of remorse or consequence in his life.“That’s sweet old man,” he drawls, keeping his posture deliberately loose to disguise how badly he wants, in that moment, to punch him right in his self-righteous face, “but you couldn’t have told us a couple weeks ago? We went through all that trouble planning our daring escape off the grid, and you wait until now to tell us we won’t need it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am really sorry about how I handled it,” Bruce repeats, and wow, it really is like talking to a robot. “I will work on not doing it again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Jason says, and suddenly he’s not even angry anymore, just burned-out and tired. Because Bruce has been making him promises from the day they met, and so far, it never changes a goddamn thing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every few days, Damian comes over and just sort of hangs out in their apartment. Mode of entry notwithstanding – it’s always a coin-toss, whether he’ll deign to use the door or sneak in through a window – he is always allowed in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His go-to response, when questioned about it, is that he “was observing them to see if they would make valuable allies.” Tim and Jason just laugh in his face, every time he says it, and set him up with an activity more appropriate for his age than his skill level.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a while, he has a drawer in one of the side tables in the living room, and had a preferred blanket on the couch</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then one morning, he comes over whileTim is still in bed,and he tries to attack him while he’s sleeping, and Jason’s got a hand around his arm before he he can even blink, dragging him out to the living room and trying to remember that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry’s watching them</span>
  </em>
  <span> which means he needs to use his words and not his weapons..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>cannot</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he hisses, suddenly so angry he can barely breathe and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs</span>
  </em>
  <span> to calm down because Damian has to understand this, to understand how </span>
  <em>
    <span>serious</span>
  </em>
  <span> this is</span>
  <em>
    <span>,</span>
  </em>
  <b> “</b>
  <span>try to kill Tim anymore. I know where you’re coming from, and I know you don’t wanna hear it, but that is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>.I’m sorry that I set the precedent that it’s okay, but it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damian stares at him for a long moment, several different emotions fighting bloody battles on his face, but eventually he relaxes in Jason’s grip, settles back into his usual cool indifference. “Fine,” he scowls, and though his tone is just as bratty as usual, he seems uncomfortable enough that Jason figures he got his point across. Damian looks away, frowning, and then noticing Harry’s anxious face peeking around the edge of the hallway, raises his voice enough to carry to his hiding place. “I won’t do it again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, despite not being explicitly asked, he mostly avoids threats of death and maiming around Harry, and any continued stabbing attempts are downgraded to half-hearted efforts, at best.He also takes over almost all of Harry’s self defense lessons, teaching him how to disarm opponents instead of directly attacking them. In return, as Harry gets closer to Damian, he starts pulling him into the things that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>enjoys, talking his ears off about what games he’s playing, and books he enjoyed that weren’t written by Plato.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim and Jason try to keep out of the way when he comes over, not wanting to disturb whatever blossoming friendship is taking off right there in their living room. Damian is finally coming out of his shell, acting more like a child his age, and neither of them want to disturb that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One evening they even talk him into staying for dinner, with Jason offering to cook him something from when he was smaller, and that’s when they finally see all the progress they’ve made.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damian politely passes food when asked, doesn't threaten Tim with any of the silverware, and with a little prompting , tells them all about his day and how he and Jon had hung out in Metropolis that weekend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tim texts Bruce about it afterwards, and he swears that Bruce’s answering sniffle could be heard from clear across town.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn't an overnight change, of course; Damian still has bad days, and Tim still has days when he can’t let Damian out of his sight (like but also not like the days when sometimes, he can’t seem to look at Jason at all), but overall, they’re getting better. Which, of course, is when everything goes wrong, because in this one way, Gotham is nothing if not predictable. It’s one of those fundamental laws of reality. The sun rises, Batman broods, and Joker always, always breaks out of Arkham.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-----------------------------------------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to stay here,” Tim tells Harry firmly as he and Jason gearup that night, grim and worried. “The Joker isn’t someone to mess with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason nods, catching Harry’s eye to make sure the kid’s paying attention. “This isn’t Ivy, or Harley, or even Penguin, ok kid? The Joker doesn't care that you’re young, might even target you because of it. You have to swear to me you won’t go out tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry nods, eyes wide and solemn, and the two of them head out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever the Joker’s up to, he hasn't gone public with it yet; he’s hiding, though whether he’s still drafting up his latest twisted scheme or already putting it in motion is anybody's guess. With nothing concrete to go on the Bats spread out, scouring the city for any clue that might lead to his location, or some hint of what he’s planning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the third straight hour of nothing, they see something following behind them and Black Bat </span>
  <em>
    <span>reacts</span>
  </em>
  <span>, lashing out at the shadow that’s been tailing them for blocks. She barely manages to pull back her strike once she realises who she’s caught.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cass drags Harry back to the rest of the group like a kitten by the scruff, dropping him disapprovingly in front of the Reds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Following us,” she says, voice heavy with reproach. “Did you not tell him to stay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty sure we were rather explicit on that front, actually,” Red Hood says with an unimpressed stare in Harry’s direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry’s eyes are fixed guiltily on his feet, so at least he knows he’s in the wrong when he admits, “You were out for a while and turned off all your screens. I was worried.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Red Robin runs a hand over his face and groans. “We did tell him to stay home, it just didn’t stick.” He leans down and hugs Harry tightly, which at least interrupts his tragic staring contest with the roof they're standing on, so he can stare at him instead. “We turned our screens off because we didn’t want you to see what might happen tonight, and you know we’ll always do our best to come back to you. Now come on, let Robin take you to the manor; Batman’s already there on bench rest, and we’ll join you once we know what’s going on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two of them drive back to the manor in silence. As they approach the entrance to the Batcave, Robin cuts one last, sad look at Harry before dropping him off into Alfred's waiting arms and speeding back out into the Gotham night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alfred walks him over to Bruce’s seat in front of the Batcomputer, and Bruce scoops him into his lap without a moment’s hesitation as he works on assisting Oracle in her electronic search of Gotham. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know they worry about you,” Bruce says after a moment, breaking the silence but never taking his eyes off the monitors in front of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I worry about them too, when they go out,” Harry replies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They feel like they need to protect you, since they’re taking care of you,” Bruce continues, and as nice as Bruce is, as patiently as he smiles at him, sometimes Harry wonders if he even really hears him, when he talks.. “They don’t want you to see all of what Gotham does, the way that they had to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess,” Harry begins, but then loses that thought before he can finish it, and the next thing he knows, he’s drifted off right there against Batman’s chest.He doesn't wake up when Bruce receives an emergency beacon an hour later, or after that when half of Bruce’schildren come tearing into the cave, dragging Tim urgently towards one of the containment rooms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stephanie breaks off from the rest to run up to him, eyes blown wide behind her white-outs. “Joker was planning to gas the lower half of the city,” she gasps. ”We managed to catch him before he did it but he got Tim.” She shoots an anxious glance over her shoulder at the containment room currently housing Red Robin “Jason’s bringing the Joker back to Arkham, although a little more beat up then you would probably prefer.” She shrugs, clearly not at all concerned over the Joker’s well-being. “ We don’t think he’s had time to change the composition of the toxin, so we’re gonna try the antidote for the last version.” News delivered, Steph dashes off, leaving Bruce staring at her back, with Harry still asleep in his lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry is carefully deposited on the Crashing Couch, so called for the long-standing Robin tradition of crashing on it when the Manor and their bedrooms just felt too far away, and then Bruce is free to rush to his son’s side. The others seem to have it under control, especially now that Alfred’s joined them, but he can’t help but worry. Joker is unpredictable, he could have found time to change toxin after all, or laced it with something. One memorable week it had been cocaine, and none of them are eager to see what he chooses next. Tim issedated and lying calmly on the cot when Bruce arrives, and Alfred pats him on the shoulder, assuring him that the antidote seems to be working fine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the next morning Tim is back on his feet, tired and sore but otherwise unharmed, and it isn’t like the previous night never happened, exactly, but it does feel like right now, having breakfast at noon with their whole family present and throwing croissants back and forth across the table, its horrors cannot touch them. They aren't safe, but they're together, and maybe, for now, that’s enough. </span>
</p><p>
  
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